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Gasol stars in place of Howard for Lakers

Pau Gasol had 23 points and 10 rebounds in place of injured centre Dwight Howard, and the visiting Los Angeles Lakers blew an 18-point lead before escaping with a nail-biting 98-97 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Sunday.

The Spaniard followed up his 22-point, 11-rebound performance in Friday's 111-100 win at Minnesota with another strong outing as Howard missed his second straight game after aggravating a right shoulder injury.

Kobe Bryant scored 18 points, Earl Clark had 17 and 10 rebounds while Steve Nash finished with 11 points and 10 assists but blew a pair of game-sealing free throws in the final seconds for the Lakers (21-27), who won for the fifth time in six games.

After building a 72-54 third-quarter lead, the Lakers became stagnant and the Pistons roared back to knot the contest at 95-95 on Charlie Villanueva's three-pointer with two minutes five seconds remaining.

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Bryant's three-pointer put the Lakers back on top for good with 69 seconds left to play, but they had to endure some anxious moments in the end.

The Pistons pulled to within one on a layup by Will Bynum and had a chance to take the lead after Gasol missed a short jumper.

Andre Drummond, however, missed a short baseline shot at the other end. Clark grabbed the rebound but missed two free throws after getting fouled with 16.8 ticks left.

With another shot to retake the lead, Bynum had his driving layup attempt bounce out. Nash grabbed the miss but the 95 per cent foul shooter blew two from the stripe with 2.7 seconds left.

The Pistons had a final shot to pull out the win but Drummond couldn't handle Kyle Singler's inbound lob pass at the rim with 1.2 seconds left, allowing the Lakers to improve to 2-1 on their seven-game road trip.

Greg Monroe had 20 points with 12 rebounds while Bynum added 18 points and 10 assists off the bench for the Pistons (18-29), losers for the third time in their past four games.

Elsewhere, LeBron James scored 30 points, Chris Bosh had 13 of his 28 in the final frame against his former team and the visiting Miami Heat sent coach Eric Spoelstra to the NBA All-Star Game after beating the Toronto Raptors for the 10th consecutive time, 100-85.

Miami's victory clinched the best record in the East (30-14) through Sunday, meaning Spoelstra will guide the conference in the February 17 mid-season classic in Houston.

And in Boston, Paul Pierce scored 22 points, including the game-sealing triple with 2.5 seconds remaining, as the Celtics moved to 4-0 since losing All-Star guard Rajon Rondo to a season-ending knee injury. Boston held off the visiting Los Angeles Clippers, 106-104.